A trapiche is a mill used to extract the juice from certain fruits of the earth, such as olives or sugar cane.[1]​.

The sugar mill is a mill with which sugar cane juice is obtained, with which panela/piloncillo is generally manufactured or sugar is obtained. In the past, animal traction was used, although today electric or gasoline motors are used. The most recognized sugar mills are used in the central/southern area of ​​Mexico, and part of Central America, with the Campollo brand being the most used in these places.

The mills in the sugar mills are made up of a series of mills (the number of mills varies depending on the factory) composed of three grooved rollers that press the previously shredded sugar cane and extract its juice. This juice is concentrated and cooked until the sugar crystallizes. As waste, a product called bagasse comes out of the sugar mill, which can be used as fuel in the boilers themselves or as raw material for the production of paper.

In the mining regions, the mills carried out the grinding and washing of fine gold, which was sometimes also collected with quicksilver.

The facilities required by a sugar mill, despite its simplicity, were expensive enough that only the richest could enable one. The stones, the salaries of the workers in charge of the grinding, the rent of the site and the water, the constructions, etc., increased their cost; The shortage of mills ensured a permanent demand for work from individuals who did not own them and who were charged a percentage of metal for each "grinding", called "maquila".

Due to the general mechanisms in which Chilean economic life developed in the Colony, the mills represented a highly profitable investment for their owners. It is not surprising that the landowners have been its main builders, since in addition to owning their own mines that required them to work their metals, they also had the necessary resources for their installation, the land and the personnel to attend to them. On the other hand, the receipt of metals in payment for their use offered them a source of high profitability, to the extent that they were connected to the gold commercial circuit outside the local margins of the production centers. In 1808, the Mining Court was represented as an abuse "for some owners of the sugar mills to allow them to grind and benefit gold and silver metals in them to any subject who does not know or know that he is the owner of the mine or find out where he got them from." But for the miller only the "maquila" counted, which represented 50% of the value of a drawer according to an estimate from the middle of the century.